If you live in London, you'll remember a few years ago that you were promised something magical, something too good to be true - an all night tube service that would deliver you safely back to the place you lay your head from whatever hedonistic drinking spot you'd managed to find yourself in, whatever the time.
Now, after a year of stalling, the Night Tube finally has a start date: August 19th, just in time for the bank holiday. The Central and Victoria Line will kick things off with the Jubilee, Northern and Picadilly Line to follow in the autumn. The service will run on Friday and Saturday nights.
Apart from an increased chance of being vomited on during your weekend rides home, there's several other impacts this will have on your lives. Stuff like...
1. The 'I've got to get the last tube home' excuse is dead and gone
It's been a handy staple of Londoners for many a year. Used both to get yourself out of boring birthday parties in deepest darkest North West London and to yourself ('I'll just go for a few and get the last tube home') to add a healthy dose of scheduling and restraint to a night that otherwise has no limits. Nights that were once cut short at 12 now can carry on until 3, 4, 5 AM - hell why even go to bed anyway? Just stay up all weekend and roll into work or uni Monday morning whiffing of cheap red wine and Camel lights, wearing your once ironically pink bomber jacket, now stained with something blue and sticky and with mascara on your nose.
2. The potential to make drunk friends is far, far worse
Uber has limited the extroverts amongst you for too long. Before, when you used to get the night bus home, what was to stop you striking up a conversation with the old man next to you who smelled a little bit like wee? Nothing! Uber means you share your journey home with no-one else other than your boring friends though who you've already spent all night talking to. The tube though is warm, well lit and perfect for starting conversations with random strangers (why). Prepare to begin finding a whole bunch of number in your contact list which your brain can't attach a face to but who are listed under names like SAM FIT TRAIN TUBE and SARA NICE DRESS.
3. All-carriage singalongs are inevitable and inescapable
Thank Uber for this one. Their introduction of linking your Spotify to your car means that, like Pavlov's dogs, you expect your journey home to involve your 'KATY AN ALIS LOLS DRUNKS PLAYJIST' (made when drunk, clearly) on the go. Sadly, on the tube, there won't be a recording of Lisa Stansfield All Around The World to hand. Which means a singlalong from you and your friends. Now picture the rest of the carriage doing the same thing. It'll be like someone pressed play on all the songs on Now That's What I Call Music 21 at the same time but instead of them being sung by the original artists they're being sung by foxes during coitus. It's going to be delightful.
4. You'll explore new and exciting drunk food outlets
Previously, thanks to Uber, you've been limited to getting drunk food from from the dodgy chicken shop right next to your house. Now, thanks to a walk from the tube stop to your house there's finally an opportunity to explore that more upmarket-looking kebab shop with an amusing name like 'Abrakebabra' or something equally pleasing. Try a gyro wrap. Give a veggie burger a go. Go hogwild and get a pizza whi don't you? You never know, you might just find your perfect hangover-destroying food.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.